This invention pertains to knives for field skinning of certain game animals after they are downed. The knife is readily portable, and safe to carry because it is easily dissembled to be carried in a pouch. It is also particularly useful because it can be guided by the fingers of a user which are sensitive enough to guide the cut below the skin of the animal and will not be clogged by the hair on the skin of the animal.
Skinning of a game animal such as deer, antelope, moose or the like, particularly in the field, requires careful work with a knife. Most knives for skinning are adapted to cut from the outside in towards the body of the animal. Those knives can be used, but suffer from two serious shortcomings. Unless the user is extremely careful, the hair or fur on the skin of the animal is apt to become matted in front of the knife as it cuts, therefore requiring either stopping the cut for parting the hair, or attempting to cut through the matted hair. The first procedure results in constant delays in making long cuts. The second procedure may result in clear demonstration of the second shortcoming of the usual knife.
That second shortcoming is the tendency of the knife to cut through not only the skin but also the subcutaneous tissues and into the muscle of the animal resulting in unnecessary bleeding into the meat, or worse, cutting through into an organ resulting in considerable damage to the meat of the animal.
By my invention, I provide a knife which will cut from the inside out on the skin of the animal thus avoiding the problems of the usual knife, and a knife which can be more easily carried than present knives.